Data Metrics and Rural Land Use Planning

DISCUSSION PAPER:

ASSESSING THE VIABILITY OF A DIGITAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AERIAL & SATELLITE IMAGERY, GIS MAPPING AND LAND USE PLANNING, TO ESTABLISH A METHOD FOR INTEGRATION OF FARM LAND USE PLANNING AND REGIONALISED NUTRITIONAL DEMAND AUTHOR:

MATTHEW WILLIAMS REVISION AND DATE OF ISSUE:

ISSUE A, 30 OCTOBER, 2021

PURPOSE Land is a scarce resource, becoming scarcer over time. Human populations are increasing as are their aggregated nutritional demands. There are currently no statutory controls over the type of agricultural stocks farmed and sold in the open market. These two issues combined means that for Farmers, it is a ‘race to the bottom’ as farmers consume more and more land to produce crops of an ever decreasing financial value.

There are no reliable metrics providing advice to Farmers as to forthcoming market demands for various types of agricultural crops.

This creates problems of over and under supply at various times.

This then has an impact on pricing of agricultural product such that this volatility can be harmful or beneficial to the Farmer. Free market dynamics for agricultural markets mean that Farmers will target the highest value crops and this may not represent an efficient use of farmland, as more land may be given over to certain crops than is actually required by the consumer market.

The variability in the current system could be improved to give more certainty to farmers in terms of demand and price for their product, as well a overall improve the efficiency of land use for farming purposes, such that where land is not required to be farmed, this can be given back to the ecology for reforestation purposes.

Recent technological advances can be combined to suit this purpose.

INVESTOR VALUE The value produced by this technique is recoverable via licensing arrangements with local councils and municipalities responsible for land use planning.

PREAMBLE Matthew outlines the genesis for this idea as arising from two recent travel experiences, one as he drove from Brisbane to Cairns, a journey of about 2000 klms, along Australia’s beautiful eastern coast: ‘On a recent drive I undertook from Brisbane to Cairns, I was struck by the sheer volume of sugar cane plantations that edged the highway, this single land use visible from the car for hours on end. It occurred to me that not only is sugarcane an extremely unfriendly domestic plant type, creating ecological deserts and unhealthy monocultures, the purpose of the crop of itself – to produce sugar – is ultimately unhealthy and not purposeful for improving human health. This crop was planted purely for the economic reasons. But this is nothing new, society has dealt with this status quo for literally, millennia. What did not make sense however, was why, if each farmer sought to maximise the return of value to the selected crop type, if so many farmers made the decision to plant the same crop, once all of this supply reached the market, this could produce a situation of oversupply that would reduce the sale price and diminish the yield on the crop. It made me realise, a more detailed, nuanced approach might make sense for farmers when they are thinking about how to use their lands ….’

And the other, as he enjoyed a light aircraft flight around Phuket, a beautiful major island of 12 square kilometres in Thailand’s south, and a major focus of tourism and travel in the area: ‘Arriving at our destination altitude I was afforded a magnificent view over most of the island of Phuket – I realised I had crossed and recrossed this island many times by scooter for many weeks without understanding it’s composition and layout as quickly as I could within five minutes or so of arriving at this flight altitude. From the light airfraft, cruising at about 100 mtrs above sea level, we could see the many parts of the Phuket Island forming a cohesive whole – roadway linkages made sense, landsape features stood out and could be seen in composition with one another, various textures across the green groundscape indicated various land uses, rivers and waterways flowing together and in a sequence that was comprehendable as a whole … the delight of the suddn legibility of the ground plane from this vantage point, gave way to the realisation that land use could be seen, allocated and managed from this vantage point … and that all we needed to understand what land should do what, was a better understanding of the metrics of demand …’

These two experiences combined to provide Matthew the realisation that land uses could be rationalised, using metrics obtained from improved statistical analysis of population and market demand, to establish allocations for crop types and monitor and supervise their allocation and uptake by farmers.

PROCESS PHASE 01: METRICS The human physiology is relatively predictable in terms of its nutritional demand. Dieticians and nutritionists can access and give advice on what mix of food types accumulates to a healthy diet.

For example, in the case of sugar, whilst this is not necessarily healthy, it is not unhealthy in small quantities. So a dietician can give fairly reliable advice as to what is a reasonable level of sugar consumption within a balanced diet.

Dieticians can do the same for other nutritional types, including proteins, fats, starches, etc.

Aggrandising these requirements out across the whole population, and diversified for cultural preference, age and dietary habits, means that a picture of the ideal nutritional production will emerge.

Food consumption metrics can be tracked to understand consumption trends. Nutritional data exists to allow for translation of these food types into nutrition types that can tie to plant types. For example, beer has the following active ingredients as are gathered from plant species: yeast, hops, barley, sugar. Beer consumption is already tracked by volume so simple algorithms can be employed to translate these gross product yields to consumption levels of the crop species involved in the production of the product. Aggregating this process out, through all food types, means that this analysis is starting to provide a picture as to plant volumes required to support the existing market demand.

Data analytics are also available for translating the efficiency of consumption and the level of nutritional supply for a plant type, that can be aggrandised out to determine the likely nutritional yield for plant types in terms of crop areas.

Combining these three factors, using intelligent and effective algorithms and reliably interlinked, live data streams, means that a picture can be drawn as to the ideal nutritional uptake, and its required farmland allocation, and this can be compared with the actual market demand, independent of adjustment against good nutrition values. Given an ideal diet is something to be targeted rather than attained, both pictures of land use planning are useful in determining ideal plant species allocation across available farmlands.

PHASE 02: VISUALISATION Visual telemetry is an important tool upon which digital algorithms can rely in making interpretations as to the contents of visual imagery. Images contain various characteristics that can be sourced and coded as are specific to plant types when seen from a consistent height. This allows for production of interpretation of land use characteristics at a very high volume, bypassing the need for manual or human visualised verification, algorithms can run independently across already available satellite or aerial imagery of the ground plane. If the imagery is not available, existing facilities already exist for its efficient production.

Interpretation of visual imagery by plant type allows for two functions; firstly, these existing uses to be established and evaluated in terms of quantity by species type, and then secondly, over time, allows for tracking and comparison of actual land use against land use allocation targets.

The image at left shows example Satellite Image of Phuket Island in Southern Thailand. This tpe of image can be scaled and augmented and can include visual clues that can be used by digital algorithms to identify certain types of textures and patterns.

PHASE 03: INTEGRATION Outputs from the process include: _ Existing Nutritional Demand by plant type and planting area required; _ Ideal Nutritional Demand by plant type and planting area required; _ Existing Land Use Allocation for various plant types with existing area measures included; and _ Ideal Land Use Allocation for various plant types with required area measures included. _ Statistical tables identifying various plant species existing and required by type and area These outputs can be in the form of maps and other traditional visual tools that make available the process of assessment and allocation available to a human specialist who can actively interpret the maps and spatial allocations.

PHASE 04: AUGMENTATION This phase of the process is up to the Local Authority or Municipality Government. It is anticipated that Phase 03 can establish quotas for various plant types, which can be made available to local farmers as advice notices as to what volume of what crop can be planted per year. These agencies can utilise visual tools and metrics provided as outputs in Phase 3, to assist with the existing land use planning and zoning allocation.

SUSTAINABILITY TARGETS In today’s global world, plant crops travel huge distances as they are integrated to various food products and then sold at various local markets. Because there are no effective controls as to decisions farmers make as to allocation of their lands to various plant types, land use allocation could be made more efficient and consumption of land for farming uses could be rationalised and economised. This should result in the reduction in demand of land for farming purposes and an improvement in the quantum of unfarmed land that remains as unallocated. Given that production becomes more locally focussed, and a broader range of food types available to local producers from the local market, local producers will have an improved opportunity to offer price competitive product.

‘Flying over Phuket and I realised that Phuket is a small island and could, with the right land use planning and management tools, potentially support itself ‘off grid’ in terms of its farming resources.

Working the land to a nutritionally ideal land use model, through advanced analytics and spatial planning tools, rather than the disparate and diffuse machinations involved in the global free market system, means that over time, Phuket starts to focus in on a balanced form of land use that suits human health and the health of it’s residual natural systems and ecologies … Phuket is but an island, but so is the world, and there is no scale limit to data analytics. Big data can scale itself to suit any scale of input such that the whole of the world becomes small and manageable, like the small and familiar island of Phuket …’

Matthew Williams Architect Director, MWA NSW Reg 8645